If done properly, this is good. But if they expect restaurants and other places to drive left overs to places every day by themselves, this program will fail.

It’s absurd by how much food grocery stores and chain takeout places like Dunkin’ throw away. And on top of it, they refuse to adjust their output.

It will work if they partner with charitable organizations. When I lived in Toronto, my co-worker organized weekly pickup through Second Harvest where we would go pick up food from participating stores and then drop off at a food pantry/church.

It worked well. The stores had stuff packed up for us and it would go directly to the people who need it that day.

How would they enforce this?

"Nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." — US Bill of Rights

Fuuuuuuck youuuuuuuu guy

room temperature iq

didn’t think someone would be out here fighting for the right to throw away food that hungry people could eat.

>It will work if they partner with charitable organizations.

What if there isn't enough demand for the leftovers? I can't imagine there's an infrastructure that can just be turned on to accommodate this. It's an absolutely massive amount of food

Before "requiring" stores and restaurants to do this, how about instituting a program to make it easier for stores and restaurants to donate food at no cost/effort?

I would guess when you are hungry you will eat what you are given.

That's not the problem. It's getting it from the stores to the hungry people. Someone has to organize and staff the charities accepting the food. If there aren't enough people to do that for all the food being given away, food will have nowhere to go

Every hobo this side of the Mississippi will be camping out in the welcoming streets of Boston. No good deeds go unpunished

The only sensible way to write this policy is right of first refusal on behalf of the charity.

Otherwise, the charities will become inadvertent waste haulers dealing with more food than they can distribute.

I ask this because I’m not privy to how it works, but what costs exactly exist for say, Dunkin’ Donuts to not throw their food in the dumpster and instead hand it out to hungry people at the end of the day?

I'm not sure that restaurants want a line of hungry people outside all their restaurants at closing time every night --- it's not very efficient for the needy either (who knows what place will have food available and midnight/2AM isn't the only time when people want food). So if there are going to be distribution centers, then the food needs to get there (and get there safely in terms of what needs to be refrigerated, etc).

Most fast food places also have rules in place to dispose of the leftovers instead of giving it to employees. Too many people would abuse it otherwise.

I’ve run restaurants for 20 years. NYC, Vegas and now Boston. THERE IS SO MUCH LEFTOVER FOOD!!!! It’s always been because of health code violations.

In Vegas at one of the major casinos we finally started separating food waste to send to local farms for animal feed.

We always have bread and some simple ingredients left over from service and especially a Private Event.

Regulating this will be a nightmare. Why not concentrate on the T and rent first?

Did anyone bother to read the article? They wouldn’t have homeless people lining up and camping outside their doors for the leftovers. It says that they would partner with local nonprofits who would handle distribution.

There wouldn’t be lines of hungry people outside every night, it says right in the article that local nonprofits partnered with these places would distribute the food

I was responding to a question about the cost for Dunkin' Donuts to hand out food at the end of the day.

So, they’ll have to change the health laws?

Abuse it how? They’re leftovers/trash.

It can be abused by making more food than what is expected to be used.

A notorious one back in the day was to make/bake an extra pizza right before close so that employees can just take it home as they close

Ahh, gotcha.

Finalize good things happening, glad that Dem governor is in charge

I’d say right if first refusal to charity, and mandatory composting for anything left after that. Alternative to composting would be give/sell to farmers who can sterilize the waste and feed it to pigs. Really, anything to keep it out of the waste stream.

Pretty sure those other things have already been the law for a while.

So we need the DoorDash for charitable meals?

I would make a business to pick up their leftovers for them if need be, we need this

How do you even enforce this?

More like we would need funding for someone to pay drivers. Seems pretty onerous to put the costs of a massive charitable endeavor directly on the businesses

What the hell is wrong with the SNAP (food stamps) program? It work well and the federal government administers the program with no cost to MA.

Turning Boston into a some sort of mecca for free food sounds like a great way to invite the sort of problems San Francisco has with its homeless population.

Because progressives like feel-good, look-at-me-I'm-doing-something politics?

And I agree. This would be nightmare to administer. I can even see restaurants putting practices in place to insure the food spoils such that it is not donateable.

I used to manage at Finale in Coolidge Corner. I was shocked we had to throw out all the leftover food. I was younger and didn't understand the public health aspect of it, but still, would be nice to see the city change it's tune.